Jay Dittmann, Ph.D.

Dr. Dittmann is engaged in experimental elementary particle physics, the science of the fundamental nature of matter and energy. As a member of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) collaboration, he investigates the properties of particles produced in proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron collider in Batavia, Illinois - about 30 miles west of Chicago. Within the last two years, his work has expanded to include research at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland.

His research has involved the search for the infamous Higgs boson, a particle that has been predicted by theory but has so far eluded discovery at particle accelerators. In addition, Dr. Dittmann is interested in the top quark, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and other searches for new phenomena.

Dittmann was an undergraduate at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Physics (with honors) and a second Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Duke University in 1998, and for several years was a Leon M. Lederman Fellow at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. He joined the faculty at Baylor University in 2003, bringing experimental high energy physics to Baylor as a new research area. He received an Outstanding Professor award for research in 2012.